


morass

by thunderousbreak



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, it's what it says on the tin tbh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-12 14:26:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29635995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thunderousbreak/pseuds/thunderousbreak
Summary: Where Steve wants to take care of Bucky but he can barely take care of himself.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Kudos: 18





	morass

**Author's Note:**

> pretty much what you think it is. steve needs a god damn hug.
> 
> WARNING: bucky wears steve's shirt that has a noticeable blood stain on it. origin of blood isn't disclosed but given the premise of the fic and steve's bad mental health, some might infer it as self harm and find it triggering.

Steve was staring. He knew he was. Bucky was fast asleep on the couch, eyelids flickering to indicate that he was having a nightmare but was otherwise motionless, enervation making his energy obsolete.

A steaming cup of tea was in Steve’s palm, scorching, freshly brewed, and too nauseating to drink. Smoke ascended from his cup, surging to him in large spirals, evaporating the moment cold embraced it. Bringing his knees to his chest, he rested his hands in between his legs and felt the armchair crease.

A snuffle. Whine. The sound was too quiet for him to discern what it meant. Heat burning through the jumper, he decided that he couldn't move again. Bucky had only just lost himself to the realm of unconsciousness.

Rain was accompanying him as he watched Bucky sleep. Observing him as he observed Bucky, eyes refusing to blink until they were red-rimmed and sore. Can’t sleep, can’t blink, can’t go. He was there one moment and gone the next, Steve needed to stay on guard. It was his turn keeping watch. 

His turn now and forever.

The news said nothing of there being a storm, mentioned that there was a slight chance of precipitation on a starless night but at 3:24 in the morning it seemed as though the earth was to be drowned by tears falling from heaven. Working to swallow a sigh, he blinked and wondered if any of the water dispelled into the penthouse.

Drowning his lungs was a numbness he couldn’t name but it felt stifling, dangerous, made him erratic. Made him fear what images lay beneath his lid and what shadows he was seeing in the corner of the room- there in the entrance to his bedroom, Steve knew he saw something. Was it a ghost of his past or Bucky’s? 

They both carried burdens in their hands, cadaverous fingers resting solemnly in their palms, waiting for them to finally embrace the touch and complete this precarious game they were playing. Holding death in the fragment of their DNA was something that could never be taken out of the boys. 

So perhaps that was him, Death, standing in the corner watching Steve watch Bucky watch a reel of misery in his slumber. Not a memory or fabrication, but a friend. A visitor who came and never left.

Not today, though. Not after four restless days of confusion, isolation, diminutive hope and prevailing adversity had them by the neck, they finally reached daybreak. Steve wouldn’t let him take any of them, they outlived the storm and he would damn well make sure they’d get to enjoy the rainbow. Or, Bucky anyway. 

His head hurt. It hurt as much as the ineluctable cold that had frosted New York for the winter season. Searing, indefinite, paralysing. Within the chambers of his mind, there was a battle being fought with screams and shouts, and every sound sculpted his face to look as ghastly as the voices he harboured inside. 

Demonic perhaps. Deformed, crooked, warped by fatigue and. And. What’s that? The familiar call of anguish rang in between his ears. And so, very tired. That’s what he was. Falling apart at the seams.

In the corner of his eye, he saw movement, a shadow breaking its eclipse. Light from the building surrounding them suddenly touched the wall. Steve froze. Another friend? Or a memory. Ghost.

For all it was worth, admitting it would be helpful, would it not? That was what everyone said. Every ill-advised individual who commented on the internet or in the White House, sometimes even over comms.  _ Tell me, what’s going on over there? Sitrep, now! _

It was a bad night. It was a gruesome night. It was a night of horrors and it hadn’t ended when Bucky’s eyes shut and his breathing evened, it continued afterward and even now, whilst Steve watched over him to make sure they’re both safe, the horrors kept coming through. 

Someone. Something was in the flat. Was it a friend or foe? Steve wanted to but couldn’t investigate because he promised-

It started because of the white shirt. He didn’t even know where Bucky managed to dig it out from, but it was Steve’s. The one they dressed him in when he awoke into the new century where everything was new and people were curious and suddenly relics could speak and wait a minute, is that Captain America? Who the fuck is Steve Rogers?

No, no that didn’t matter. What did was that Bucky drew that shirt like a fisherman reels in his catch from the bottom of Steve’s wardrobe where his most loathed clothes waited in hopes of being discarded. He was going to burn those motherfuckers as soon as he can stand the thought of touching them. 

He plucked it from the nest of decay and wore it without the careful inspection it garnered (had Steve washed it since that day? Of course he hadn’t, that would require-) and threw it on. Wore it without a second thought. 

Problems followed that shirt like they spawned from it, and so when Bucky realised this off-brand white shirt bore a suspicious red stain and would you look at that, doesn’t red look so stark on white? He panicked. See, Bucky doesn’t understand time. Not like Steve. It was now 3:27-

It was 4:38 am.

He lost handfuls of time to his mind and when he’d emerge, it was finally safe to do so, he'd be confused and disorientated and Steve would gladly explain that he was safe and he had done no wrong. Steve would also gladly leave out the information of where he worried and stressed and begged for things to be okay.

So seeing that blood that was most definitely old but more importantly Steve’s, Bucky going on his fourth day of no sleep panicked. Rightfully so, he frenzied and struggled to breathe and-

The shadow was moving closer. The tea was suddenly ice in Steve’s grasp, perhaps the cold burrowed in his chest was freezing his vicinity, but he could overturn the cup and nothing would run. It was so cold, how was Bucky not shivering in the open air? The closer it advanced, the more Steve’s muscles trembled with energy he didn’t fear to use.

Should it come to it he'd burn the entire tower to keep Bucky safe, he hoped that the silhouette knew that. 

\- Steve tried to console him. Assured him that it was old- meant nothing to him, he’d never seen it before, he promised on his life. But Bucky told him to stop it. Stop doing that. Stop  _ lying to me, Steve! I know you heal fast, I know that these bastard bodies won’t leave behind evidence of what I do but just tell me. Did I cut you up or- or did I use my fists because this entire body is a fucking weapon _ .

Insatiable. Uncontrollable. Steve thinks back to it almost sluggish. Bucky was pacing the floor, manic and unwilling to accept the truth. Convinced that he was a monster, therapy wasn’t doing shit if he was losing time and in his absence still afflicting so much pain. 

Perhaps Steve should have explained the origin of the blood, the relevance of the shirt and why it panicked him just as much as it did Bucky, all for different reasons. But the shock of seeing it and seeing the two memories merging sent him into turmoil and there were only so many words he could shed before he threw the shirt into the garbage disposal and listened to it rip.

Of course, his contradicting explanation nourished Bucky’s skepticism and he wished he could redo the entire thing. React how he should have, with his head and not his troubled heart that wouldn't cease its theatrics for one moment. Better yet he wished he left it in his last apartment so the entire thing could have been avoided.

But he didn’t. Bucky was twisting and turning in his sleep. Steve was going to throw this cup if the shadow didn’t move from behind him, back into the dark. Why did the war come to America?

Sitting in the same position for so long had calcified his entire body, making it hard and stiff and unusable. How could he defend Bucky from their unwanted visitor? He’d have to do something. Anything. He couldn’t fail him twice in the same night.

It was just a bad night. The weatherman lied about the rain, it was storming out there. Raindrops pelting the window hard enough to break it. Sirens were still sounding out alarms, the city that never slept. It was only getting colder in the room and Steve was certain he would freeze over if he didn’t turn the heating up.

Perhaps he should risk waking Bucky if it meant draping a blanket onto him. Steve couldn’t protect him from his mind but he’d do everything humanly possible to save him from the horrors outside of there.

Starting from bashing the mug clasped in his hand against whoever was tickling the back of his neck with their glacial fingers. Touch him again and he’ll-

There was no one.

Mug raised, tea dripping onto the floorboard so loud it was as though Steve had succumbed Niagara falls into it, he was breathing heavily and prepared to attack but no one was there. Only the beginning of dawn to see him shivering. 

Blinking blearily and rapidly, he quickly lowered his hand and held what little remained of his liquid tea, looking at the puddle on the floor, heart racing. He was perplexed. But the tea was- the shadow man was touching his- there was ice in the very room he-

“Steve?” he heard Bucky mutter, voice croaky from sleep. “‘ was that?”

Looking out of the window and seeing his disheveled reflection stare back at him he replied, “nothing Buck, just dropped my tea. You go back to sleep, I'll clean this up.”

It was a testament to how tired Bucky was that he didn’t argue and was dead to the world in a matter of seconds. Steve ambled to the sink, gently placed his mug inside, and checked the thermostat to find it as high as Bucky wanted it, hating the heat as much as he hated the cold.

Swallowing a terse breath, he looked at the floor and wondered what that was. Could it really be tea?

Closing his eyes, he counted to ten and refused to savour the bliss that came with keeping them shut for longer than a millisecond before prying them open. Bucky. He had to keep an eye on Bucky.

Getting the mop and soaking the tea, he resumed his seat and did what he did best. Stared at Bucky whilst the upcoming sun stared at him, waiting for official daybreak to hit so that they could finally get to work.

And maybe, just maybe, he could finally get some sleep.


End file.
